Turkish authorities want to deport this young woman to her certain death on Saturday (5th August). Neda Amin(33) is an Iranian journalist and has been living in Turkey for three years now. However, she is now facing deportation to Iran.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has officially recognised her as a refugee. Regardless of that, Turkish authorities have scheduled her deportation for 5th August (the relevant documents are available to BILD).

Who is Neda Amin?

She worked as an author in Iran and wrote a book on women’s rights. The book was banned, and Neda Amin was threatened. Three years ago, she was eventually forced to leave her home country.

In Turkey, she is writing several blogs and works for, among other things, an Israeli publication – the Persian edition of the “Times of Israel”.

The Turkish secret service accuses the journalist of espionage

The Turkish secret service questioned her on the topic several times, by phone and at a station. “They kept asking me why I work for an Israeli newspaper and whom I am in touch with in Israel. Even though I kept saying that I am just a journalist, they accused me of spying for Israel.”

She stabbed her rapist in self-defense and was sentenced to death in a show trial with confessions made under torture by the Iranian regime.

She was also threatened by Iranian secret service employees in Turkey, Amin says. For in Iran, anybody who cooperates with Israeli companies is a traitor and enemy of the state. The punishment for this is death by hanging.

She assumes that her activities for the Israeli newspaper are the reason why the Turkish authorities want to deport her. Her lawyer has appealed against the decision and demands that Amin be given the reasons for the deportation. However, they have never received an answer.

“I am very scared,” Neda Amin tells BILD. “I have done nothing wrong, and the United Nations recognise me as a refugee, but certain Turkish authorities have me in their sights. I cannot go back to Iran. I just want to go to a different country where I can be safe.”

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has to intervene

At BILD’s inquiry about what is being done in Neda Amin’s case, a spokesperson of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees replied that, as a matter of principle, one would not publicly comment on individual cases “for reasons of data protection and general considerations concerning the protection of the concerned persons”.

Neda Amin says that she tried to receive protection through the UNHCR several times, but never received an answer.

Now the organisation UN Watch is working on the case of Neda Amin. They have begun a petition and have written a letter directly addressed to UN High Commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi: “We urgently ask you to intervene with the Turkish government and to stop this illegal deportation directive, which violates Turkey’s commitments under international law.”

Turkey, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer explains in the letter, has signed the refugee conventions, according to which nobody can be deported, against their will, to a country where they are threatened. “Ms. Amin will be in great danger if she is deported to Iran. (…) Due to the given urgency, we ask you to act in a timely manner,” the appeal by the NGO concludes.